COLUMN: Leave your cell phone behind for a few hours, it's OK to unplug
My biggest gripe about my job is how I'm expected to be constantly connected to what is going on.
As a journalist, I'm expected to know the most recent headlines, monitor social media for tips, engage on social media with readers, call, text and email sources, write stories, be 100 percent accurate and listen to criticism when readers aren't happy. Did I mention the news runs on a 24-hour cycle?
It's nonstop engagement. At times, it's nonstop stress.
This is a reality for many professionals in the United States, from corporate executives to elementary school teachers — students too. We are constantly wired in, receiving information and moving faster than our brains can compute. We are sleep deprived, lacking energy and mentally at capacity.
We need to make time to unplug from our phones, computers and tablets.
We've become conditioned to immediately check our text messages, emails, Twitter notifications, Instagram updates, Snapchat stories, Tumblr and Pinterest posts and Facebook arguments whenever we feel bored. We have forgotten what life was like before computers became glued to our hands.
Our devices also wear us down mentally.
I personally felt the stress of being constantly wired in earlier this school year.
Knowing I needed to make a change, I stopped carrying my cell phone around all the time. Sometimes, I don't turn it on for days.
The reason, in part, is because I broke my iPhone 5 and am forced to use a prehistoric iPhone 3. But the bigger reason is because I really enjoyed the feeling of not having a phone for a while.
I was free again. I was no longer on the map for people to call or text. When people saw me in person, they'd jokingly say "we thought you were dead!"
For our virtual conversation's sake, I might as well have been dead. But now I'm more alive than ever.
Now, I try to live every day in the present. I try to focus on what is going on in front of me and with the people around me. I stopped splitting my thoughts between what I'm doing and what is going on in my text message and email conversations — the virtual world.
Refraining from checking my phone every few minutes gives my mind time to rest during the day. I think more clearly now that I don't have a constant stream of information bogging down my brain. I try to live at a slower pace and that's OK.
We all could afford to slow down. We don't need to always be mentally stimulated.
I found that it's OK to go for a walk without my cell phone or spend a few hours in the morning in uninterrupted thought. I won't miss anything.
I recommend everyone tries it.
You might learn something new about yourself that you just can't learn on a phone, television or computer screen.
I did.
